France march on. A 2-0 win over Morocco in Boston on Thursday evening sent them to the World Cup semi-finals for the third tournament running, Ken Early on hand to see Kylian Mbappé dust himself down after missing a penalty to help them along the way. “But let nobody kid you by saying this was easy for France. Morocco gave the tournament favourites their hardest game so far.”
Will England overcome Norway on Saturday and join the French in the last four? Well, among those to make no assumptions about getting the better of the Norwegians down the years were Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. Lars Sivertsen explains all.
Gavin Cooney, meanwhile, reflects on the impact of that Fifa decision to un-suspend the United States’ Folarin Balogun for their game against Belgium. Well, that Gianni Infantino decision, to be more precise. It was, he says, “one of the great World Cup scandals”, and “utterly corrosive” to the tournament.
***
Joe Canning: Donal Óg didn’t accept my point live on RTÉ, but I’ve no doubt about Cork’s problem
Alternative All Stars: The footballers who deserve recognition despite early exits
French World Cup march doesn’t miss a beat despite toughest challenge yet
World Cup 2026 schedule: Your complete guide to the fixtures and results
Question of the day: The notion that golf’s Scottish Open is the ideal warm-up for the British Open is somewhat tested by the fact that only one man has ever won both in the same year. He achieved the feat in 2013 – go on, name him.
***
And Keith Duggan traces the origin of Lamar Hunt’s love for football – the founder and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs fell head over heels “on a chilly night in 1962, at a Shamrock Rovers game in Milltown”.
On the home front, Derry City have given themselves a more than decent chance of progressing in the Europa League qualifiers after a narrow first-leg defeat by CSKA Sofia, and Bohemians are looking in good shape in their Conference League endeavours, beating Gibraltar’s St Joseph’s 2-0 at Dalymount. Ringmahon Rangers, though, have paid a heavy price for giving a walkover for their FAI Cup fixture against Bohs.
In Gaelic games, Joe Canning gives us his thoughts on that spiky enough run-in with Dónal Óg Cusack on RTÉ last weekend, Joe standing by his view that hype did indeed play a part in Cork’s downfall against Galway.
Denis Walsh recalls happier times for Cork, when the legend that was Christy Ring was doing his thing. His eighth and final All-Ireland winning medal has found a home in an Augustinian church.
And on the football front, ahead of the latest instalment of the Dublin-Kerry rivalry, Dubs manager Ger Brennan recalls his own involvement – and non-involvement – in some of the epic encounters between the counties down the years.
Wicklow and Down haven’t had quite the same rivalry, but they’ll square up in Saturday’s Tailteann Cup final, Ian O’Riordan hearing from Wicklow boss Oisín McConville in the build-up.
In rugby, Gerry Thornley previews Ireland’s Nations Championship meeting with Japan, also on Saturday, opportunity knocking for some of the squad’s newer names, with Andy Farrell refusing to be dragged in to a prematch back-and-forth with Japan’s coach, his old buddy Eddie Jones.
Matt Williams looks ahead to that tussle, and concludes, after watching the opening games in the Nations Championship, that rugby is “far ahead of association football” when it comes to “teaching our youth about life values”.
Peter O’Mahony, meanwhile, is trying to come to terms with the prospect of Ronan O’Gara becoming Leinster’s head coach. “It would be a weird one, to be fair,” he says, John O’Sullivan hearing his thoughts on his old pal’s – possible – next career move.
In tennis, Jonathan Liew reports on the women’s Wimbledon semi-finals, which have set up an all-Czech final between Karolina Muchova and Linda Nosková. And Philip Reid has word on Rory McIlroy’s bright start to his Scottish Open challenge.
And in racing, Brian O’Connor has some questions for the sport’s Irish governing body in light of the scrapping of Cliodhna Guy’s position, their regulatory board’s head of governance and legal finishing up in her job today.
TV Watch: Where do we start? Round two of the Scottish Open continues through the day on Sky Sports Golf, as does the Evian Championship on Sky Sports Plus. It’s men’s semi-final day at Wimbledon, BBC One and BBC Two bringing hours upon hours of coverage, TNT Sports and TG4 have stage seven of the Tour de France, Virgin Media Two brings you the Monaco Diamond League from 7pm, and at 8pm, Spain and Belgium meet in the World Cup quarter-finals (RTÉ2 & BBC1).
Answer: Phil Mickelson. He beat Branden Grace in a play-off to win the 2013 Scottish Open at Castle Stuart, and a week later he won his sole British Open at Muirfield by three strokes.
